


Beyond the Sea

by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Angst, Confessions, Eventual Smut, F/M, Running Away, Seaside, Swimming, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-24 08:09:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4911889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Murdock Foyle’s execution, Phryne decides to get away from Melbourne for a little while, and accepts the invitation of a certain detective inspector to borrow his family’s seaside cottage for a short holiday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nightmare

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deedeeinfj](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deedeeinfj/gifts).



> For DeeDee, who requested the prompts, which I’ve again used as the chapter titles. I hope she enjoys the trope-tastic goodness. ♥

Early in the morning, in the office of the governor of the Melbourne City Jail, Phryne Fisher sat alone and in silence. The clock ticking on the wall dropped the sound of each passing second into the room like an artillery shell. Five minutes to six… four minutes to six. 

Phryne opened her purse and took out a small leather wallet. From within it, she removed a small, faded blue ribbon, worn and sad with a decade-and-a-half of handling. Three minutes to six. 

She had been offered the opportunity to be present at Murdock Foyle’s hanging. After the elaborate escape he had pulled off, complete with faking his own death, the governor felt it was appropriate to allow her that option. Phryne had declined. She had once told Foyle she would gladly do to him precisely what he had done to Janey. Now, she simply wanted all of this to be over. 

Two minutes to six. 

She would have to write to her mother, when this was all over. No doubt Aunt Prudence already had, to tell her that Janey was now safely in the cemetery with the rest of their family, but that letter would be long on emotion and short on detail, and in any case it wouldn’t get to England for another few weeks… 

One minute to six. 

Phryne heard a roaring in her ears. She looked at the window, but it was closed. She took a deep breath to calm herself, clutched the ribbon in her black-gloved hands, and fixed her eyes on the clock. 

Six o’clock. 

The bell of the prison chapel began to toll. 

Phryne bowed her head over the little bit of blue ribbon, remembering her sister, how Janey’s pale hair had gleamed in the sunlight, how her laugh had sounded, how playful and gentle she had been. The image of her sister’s remains seemed to melt away, and in her memory Phryne saw Janey sleeping peacefully in the earth, under the stand of willows by the river. 

She heard footsteps in the corridor, and looked up as the door entered. “It’s done?”

Detective-Inspector Jack Robinson nodded briefly. “It’s done.” His eyes were subdued by the death he had just witnessed, but Phryne could feel the weight of his concerned gaze on her face as though it was a physical thing. 

The governor was speaking to her. Whatever he said, Phryne didn’t recall once she and Jack were safely out of the prison and back in his car, but she assumed she acquitted herself well. “He said,” Jack informed her, “that in light of the fact that Foyle has no next of kin, his body will be donated to the university’s medical program for dissection. A fitting end,” he added, not without some dark satisfaction, “for a man of his beliefs.”

Dimly, Phryne agreed. She stared out the front window of Jack’s car, her mind somewhere else entirely.

“Miss Fisher?” Jack put a light hand on her arm. “Shall I take you home or…?”

Home… at that moment, there was nowhere in the world where Phryne wanted to be _less_. Home, her lovely Wardlow, meant a return to much-loved faces and to society and to responsibilities. “No,” she whispered. “Take me… somewhere, Jack. Somewhere away from here. Just for a few days.”

“An hotel, then—”

“No! Somewhere… away from people. Please, Jack.”

He looked at her for a second or two as though she had three heads. “I’m not sure you’re in a fit state to be by yourself,” he said at last.

Phryne let out an exasperated little noise and turned to him with an expression of exhausted amusement. “Well, in that case, you’re welcome to be my chaperone, Inspector. Now will you please drive?”

Jack eyed her for another moment, then pursed his lips and started the car.


	2. Cabin By the Sea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is pure fluffy fantasy, and the location is straight out of my head, but I’m putting my usual rigorous fact-checking standards on hold for now. No corrections required. ♥

“So, exactly where are we going?” Phryne asked, after they had been in the car for more than an hour. Wherever they were going, she felt reasonably certain she could have had them there in half the time, if she had been behind the wheel. 

The inspector glanced at her with a look that told Phryne he was thinking the same thing, and not to her credit, either. “You said, ‘somewhere away from people.’ So that’s where we’re going.”

If he had been another sort of man, Phryne might have begun to suspect him of having ulterior motives, even (she smiled inwardly) of not respectable intentions. But this was Jack, and in all her life, she had never felt safer in the company of… well, of almost anyone. Strange. 

They had long since left the city. Now Phryne began to smell… “Salt water? Jack, are you taking me to the seashore?”

“Got it in one, Miss Fisher,” he said breezily. “My cousin owns a little holiday cottage just off the beach. Nice and secluded. Just the thing.”

“Which cousin is this? The photographer?”

Jack nodded. “The others emigrated to Scotland after my Uncle Ted died. God only knows what they get up to, over there.” He mulled over his faraway cousins for a minute or two. “We used to love coming here, as kids.”

Phryne felt a rush of warm fondness for her friend, as they drove across the sandy track and up to the secluded little cottage. “Well, then I thank you for bringing me here. It sounds like just what I need.”

He parked the car and Phryne tumbled out, all eagerness to inspect the small beach house. It had been painted white, once upon a time, but even the windbreak of small scrubby trees and overgrown rose bushes had not been sufficient to protect the clapboards from the weathering effects of sun, salt and sea winds. But the slightly battered, lived-in appearance of the house appealed to Phryne. It looked… comfortable. 

Unlocking the front door, Jack stepped back to allow her to enter first. “It should be in fairly good order. Emily likes to bring her kids down during the summer holidays. I think they were just here a week or two ago.”

“Does she have many children?”

“Three boys. She brings them down here so she has an excuse to throw them out of the house for a day. They mess about in the ocean, and she sleeps. She’s raising them by herself,” he added, removing his hat out of sheer habit. 

“Brave woman.” Phryne looked about, soothed by the plain, clean wooden interior, the light furniture, the seashells and photographs decorating the walls. She opened one window and breathed in the cool scent of salt. “I’ll definitely spend the night here.”

“That’s about all you’ll be able to spend,” Jack pointed out dryly. “You haven’t got any extra clothes. And I doubt the nearest village will be up to your standards of fashion. Even if you felt up to the five mile walk to get there.”

Phryne pulled back from the window, frowned at Jack, and went into the small kitchen to poke about in the cupboards. “I don’t suppose you could drive me into town for a few groceries before you go?”

“I think I can manage that.” He escorted her out of the cottage and locked the door, and then to Phryne’s surprise, he took her arm. The surprise wasn’t from the gesture; they often ended up walking arm in arm, somehow. It wasn’t even his gentleness. What surprised her was how grateful she was for that gentleness. For his generosity. His friendship. 

She was made of thin invisible steel. She had fought long and hard to learn that about herself. She didn’t ask for this man’s solicitousness. But he gave it so unconditionally that it didn’t feel dangerous to accept it. 

“Can you manage making your own meals for a day?” he teased, handing her into the car. 

“I think I can be trusted to make tea and boil an egg,” Phryne retorted. “At _least_ for a day!”


	3. The Calm Before the Storm

“You shouldn’t need much,” Jack said, as they drove into the village, “not for one night. There’ll be salt and pepper and sugar in the kitchen.”

“Tea, eggs, bread and butter should do it,” Phryne decided. 

Jack parked on the main street, in front of the little grocery store. “Not willing to attempt anything more complicated, Miss Fisher?” 

“Not willing to risk burning your cousin’s charming little cottage down, Detective-Inspector.”

“Ah. Very considerate of you.”

They bought the few things, which became a few more things, like a tin of anchovies, a bit of cheese, a bit of bacon, and some biscuits. Jack looked sideways at Phryne. “For just one night? Far be it from me to comment on a lady’s dietary habits, but I’ve never seen you eat that much in one sitting before.”

“Maybe I’m going to stay more than one night,” she teased him. “Or maybe I’m just hoping you’ll stay to cook me supper.”

Jack’s lips tipped up at one corner. “Well, while you think about which one it is, I’m going to duck into the chemist’s. I’ll meet you at the car.”

The grocer made up a parcel with Phryne’s purchases and deposited it in Jack’s car, and then she waited, one eye on the door of the chemist’s shop across the street, one eye on the dark clouds gathering on the horizon. She tugged her bottom lip between her teeth, worrying at it. She was... uncomfortably aware of how much she did not want Jack to return to Melbourne that night.

The way her heart lifted when she saw him emerge from the chemist’s did not bode well for either of them. “And what mysterious potions did you purchase in there?” she teased, as they climbed into his car. 

“Sleeping powders.”

Immediately she felt a wave of concern that she didn’t want to examine too closely. “Have you not been sleeping well, Jack?”

He shut his door and then turned to look at her. His agate-blue eyes were soft. “It’s not for me, Phryne. It’s for you. In case you need it.”

Phryne opened her mouth to respond, closed it, stared blankly at his hand resting on the seat between them, and began to cry, weeping at she had done that day by the river, when they had found Janey. That day, she had held Jack aloof, needing to be alone with her sister and her grief. But Janey was safe now, and Jack… She inched her hand painfully across the upholstery to his and gripped it tightly. He pulled her close and let her cry, resting his lean cheek against her hair.

“Let’s walk along the beach a bit,” he suggested, some time later when Phryne had exhausted herself with crying. She agreed, more for the change of scenery than for any interest in the beach just then. Jack drove her to a little bay nearby where they could see fishing boat on the horizon, and they walked, talking of nothing in particular. Jane’s school work, football scores, prison reform, Calamity Jane. 

Eventually, he drove her back to the cottage with one hand on the steering wheel and one arm around her, taking the five miles from village to collage at a snail’s pace, until it was well into late afternoon. She cuddled close to his side, still wiping her eyes. Her skin was hyper-focused on the sensation of the weave of his overcoat, that he wore even in summer, against her cheek, just rough enough to ground her. It smelled like him, even if Phryne still couldn’t determine precisely what Jack smelled like.

They put the groceries away in the cottage’s kitchen, and Jack lit a fire in the little stove with the drift wood stacked in the lean-to against the cottage’s back wall. The dry, salt-saturated wood blazed in shades of greens and blues that would have been pretty on another evening, but now seemed eerie and unearthly, and Phryne was glad when he closed the door of the stove’s woodbox and began to make tea and, without asking, supper. 

There was still some daylight left, but inside it was dim. Phryne took a candle from the cupboard, lit it with her lighter, and went to explore the bedrooms. 

There were three: two tiny rooms for sleeping and nothing else, each with two small beds (likely for Jack’s cousin’s sons and any other guests) but no bedclothes, and one room with a larger bed. Phryne knelt down and looked through the chest at the foot of the large bed. She found pillows, sheets and blankets for the large bed, and none for the smaller ones. She shivered as the cool evening air ghosted in off the ocean beyond, and pondered. 

She yearned to ask Jack to stay. She so desperately did not want to be alone… no, she realized, she didn’t want to be _without him_ just now, not after he had seen her through the end of this business. But she felt… uncharacteristically delicate about asking… and she had not anticipated needing her internal device when she had left her house early that morning. 

Phryne felt herself smiling, a mocking little smile that poked fun only at herself. The prospect of sharing a chaste bed with Jack Robinson sounded far more appealing than she would have ever thought… and felt equally frightening. Was she ready to take a man to her bed because she wanted _him_ , rather than the pleasure he could provide?

A light tap at the frame of the bedroom door interrupted her reverie. Jack stood in the shadows, backlit by the candles from the kitchen just beyond. “The food’s ready,” he said quietly. “And I’m afraid I’ll have to trespass on your solitude tonight, Miss Fisher. There’s a storm rolling in.”


	4. Gasping Confession

Phryne made no mention of the single set of sheets. Jack was a former soldier and no doubt used to sleeping out in harsh conditions. He might prefer a bare mattress to the idea of sharing a bed with her, even if it was only to sleep in. 

She reflected on Jack Robinson’s character while she ate an odd little meal of scrambled eggs and anchovy toast. The wind outside rattled the windows furiously in their casements, but the candles in the kitchen dispelled some of the gloom. ‘A marriage is still a marriage,’ he had told her, some time before, but he was no longer married now. But she had no clear notion of what he felt for her, apart from friendship, exasperation, and frustrated desire. From any other man, that would have been more than enough. But it obviously wasn’t enough for Jack, and Phryne had to acknowledge, however uncomfortable the idea made her, that it wasn’t enough for her, either. 

Jack finished his meal quickly (Phryne realized rather belatedly that it was probably the first time he’d stopped to eat all day) and reached for his tea. He folded his big hands around the chipped mug, inhaling the fragrant steam. “I’m sorry you won’t get the privacy you wanted, Miss Fisher,” he told her, with solemn eyes and a lopsided smile. “I promise, I won’t intrude on you. I can take the one of the boys’ rooms.”

“You’ll hardly sleep on those tiny beds,” she protested, “they’re barely big enough for a cat, let alone someone of your height.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have to sleep on them,” he replied. “You need rest, and just because I dawdled about leaving doesn’t mean you should be relegated to the kiddie room.”

A slow, surprisingly shy smile began to tug at Phryne’s lips. “Did you really?”

“Well…” Jack carded a hand through his hair, tousling it nicely. “‘Dawdled’ perhaps wasn’t the right word… I should have left earlier. I know you wanted to be alone, but I… wanted to make sure you were in a fit state to be left alone. Especially after you…” He paused, with a delicate sort of searching glance that warmed Phryne right down to her toes. “Well, you were rather distressed, while we were in town.”

“I was,” she agreed softly. “Thank you, for staying to make sure I was all right.”

He twitched his shoulders in a shrug and his lips in a smile, a combination of motions that, with the tousled hair, only contributed to the feeling of warmth and safety that he was producing in Phryne’s blood, as well as to the gnawing nervous sensation in her middle that she was trying to suppress. “It’s fine,” he murmured, dropping his eyes to his tea again. “I can handle sleeping on one of the kids’ beds for one night. I’ll just find some sheets or a blanket and—”

“There aren’t any.”

“What?”

“I checked. There are precisely one blanket, one sheet, and two pillows in this entire cottage, and they’re for the double bed.”

“…Ah.” It was difficult to tell in the candlelight and with his complexion, but Phryne was reasonably sure Jack was blushing. “Well, I can just use my coat. If you can spare one of those pillows…”

“Jack…” Phryne hesitated a bare second, and then reached across the table and laid her fingertips lightly on his wrist. His pulse was racing. “We’re fully capable adults in full possession of our faculties.” Although she was beginning to regret the absence of alcohol from their earlier purchases… “Surely we can share a bed for one night like civilized persons.”

He glanced rapidly from her face to her hand on his wrist and back. “We shouldn’t... you’re not...” He pulled his bottom lip briefly between his teeth. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Jack. Nothing will happen unless we want it to. And no matter what happens, nothing will change. Except that I’ll know...” A sudden, hard lump rose in Phryne’s throat, and with it came tears spilling down her cheeks. Things flashed behind her eyes, old memories, old terrors. Her sister’s resting place. The last time she had cared for a man this much. She struggled to regain her composure.

Carefully, Jack uncurled his hand from around his mug and turned his wrist so that her hand was resting in his. “You’ll know what?” he asked, his voice husky and gentle.

“That I can trust you, with anything.” She felt her voice trembling in her throat, and bit her tongue to steady herself. “With everything.”

His face and neck were like stone, but his eyes were dark and soft and longing. His long fingers slowly closed around her hand. “All right, Miss Fisher… Phryne.”


	5. Rough Hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basically everyone guessed the end of this chapter. ;)

They made the bed together. They didn’t discuss it beforehand; it simply came naturally. Despite her determination to never bother about domestic concerns ever again, Phryne did remember how to make a bed from her work as a nurse (she had never been _good_ at it, but she could do it), and Jack lived alone. 

She took a moment to watch his hands as they smoothed minute wrinkles out of the bottom sheet. Her mind went naturally to wondering what his hands would feel like on her body. They were callused, she knew, but so gentle… She wanted gentleness in her bed, for a change. Her lovers were always courteous (she insisted upon that) and often tender, but they were rarely gentle and she preferred them that way. Gentleness was a luxury she wouldn’t allow herself. It stirred up emotions that she never wanted to feel again…

Jack threw the heavy handmade quilt over the bed and let it float gently down. 

Phryne drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to loosen the knot in her chest. Then she reached for the fastenings at the collar of her black blouse. Jack automatically averted his eyes. “Don’t worry,” she said, “you won’t see anything compromising, I promise.” She stripped down to her camiknickers, which left her neck and arms and her legs from her knees down bare, but demurely covered everything else of interest. She ducked into the little bathroom to scrub off the makeup still remaining on her face, and when she returned, Jack was in bed, clad only in his singlet and, as Phryne found when she slipped beneath the covers, his undershorts. 

The bed was large enough to hold both of them but not so large that they could lie comfortably without touching, but before Phryne could make any half-serious suggestions about snuggling, Jack had put an arm round her shoulders and coaxed her down into the crook of his arm. “Go to sleep, Phryne,” he murmured, reaching for the lamp. The little room was plunged into darkness. Instinctively, Phryne drew closer to him. He smelled… earthy. Not in an unwashed way, but in the way of a man who spends time with the soil. It was a clean smell, very real and honest. So she slept, lulled by the sound of his steady, even breathing. 

When she woke in the darkness, an interminable time later, it was with her heart in her throat and a scream on her lips. The dream oozed away the second her eyes snapped open, leaving no memory but the sensation of paralysis, of knives at her throat. Something moved behind her… 

“Phryne?”

She let out a sobbing breath. They had simply shifted positions in the night; she was lying on her side and Jack was curled around her, one hand resting lightly on her hip. “A nightmare,” she whispered, pulling the quilt more tightly around her. The air in the cottage was damp and she shivered. Jack pulled her closer to give her his body heat. 

His lips were close to her ear. “Do you want the sleeping powder?”

“No.” She took hold of his hand on her hip, reached behind her and found his other hand and pulled it over her shoulder and put it on her breast. She felt his breath stutter in his chest. “Please. I need to you to touch me. I need to feel something else besides…” She squeezed his hand around her breast. It wasn’t enough; she slid the straps from her shoulders and wriggled out of the top of her camiknickers, and put his hand on her bare flesh. “Please, Jack.”

There was a moment of perfect stillness between them, where all Phryne felt was the roughness of his callused hand against her pebbling nipple, and the warmth of his breath on the side of her neck. Then his fingers tightened around her breast, his other hand slid between her legs, and he molded himself close to her back and buttocks.

She was surrounded by him, a feeling of such total safety as she had not felt in years. His solid body pressed against her back, as his fingers moved against her, tracing her through the cotton of her knickers until she was thoroughly wet. His lips moved over her throat and shoulder more hesitantly, as though unsure if she wanted that kind of intimacy as well. Phryne turned her head and found his mouth with hers, and soon the rest of her body followed, turning into his embrace and pressing into his rough, gentle hands. 

When he finally dared to slip his fingers beneath her knickers to press inside her, she whimpered softly and then simply came apart, shuddering. 

“Thank you,” she whispered, when she could speak again. Jack nuzzled her cheek with his lips in silent acknowledgement. His cock was hard against her thigh, straining and twitching. Phryne stroked him with a light, lazy hand, intending to return the favor before she drifted off. Jack, instead, took the touch as an unspoken signal. He let out a long low sigh and began to move over her. 

Phryne put a hand on his chest, and he stopped at once. “I want nothing more than to make love with you, Jack,” she murmured, gazing intently up at the faint outline he made in the near-total darkness. “Please believe that.”

“…But?”

Her innards clenched at the sound of his hoarse voice, tight with need. “But… I am… uncharacteristically unprepared for intimacy tonight.” She reached up to touch his face, feeling the confusion of his expression. “Largely physically unprepared.”

“Oh,” said Jack. Then, “Oh!” And he let out a shaky chuckle. “For a moment, I thought—”

“Jack. I’ve wanted you here from the second I laid eyes on you.” She stretched up and kissed him softly. “If I’d known you were going to be with me tonight, I wouldn’t have been in quite so much of a hurry to leave town.”

He slid his hands behind her neck, and gently stroked her throat with the pads of his thumbs. “As it happens,” he said slowly, “sleeping powder wasn’t _all_ I purchased at the chemist’s today.”

A smile curled its way onto Phryne’s lips. “Jack Robinson. You always intended to stay with me.”

“Yes. Although I certainly didn’t intend for _this_ to happen… but I’m not upset that it did.” He replaced his thumbs with his lips. “So as you’re unprepared, shall I… prepare myself?”

“God, yes.”


	6. Immortal Laughter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we are. ♥

It was early when Phryne woke. That is, it was early for her. The hands of the little alarm clock on the bedside table read ten minutes past eight. Jack ought to have been up long before this, but their activities of the night before had apparently worn him out. Their lovemaking had not been energetic, but it had been… Phryne hesitated to even think the words ‘emotional’ or ‘tender’, but those were the only words that seemed to suit. Regardless, he was still asleep, and still beside her. 

She stretched her arms luxuriously above her head... and then immediately yanked them back beneath the quilt. The previous night’s storm was over and done with, but the damp, cold sea air it had driven through every tiny crack in the cottage was still very much in evidence. And besides, Jack was warm. 

Snuggling back down and pulling the quilt more securely around them both, Phryne studied his face as he slept. She had thought perhaps he might look more relaxed in sleep, especially after last night, but instead he still looked slightly pensive. His brow was the tiniest bit furrowed, as though he was pondering some knotty problem in his dreams. 

Gently, Phryne passed her fingertips over his forehead, smoothing the furrows. Jack inhaled deeply and let out a long ‘hmm’ of satisfaction. “Yes?” he rumbled, not opening his eyes. 

“Sorry,” said Phryne, sounding only the tiniest bit contrite. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t.”

“Oh good.” She went on tracing the lines and angles of his face. “So you’ve just been lying here with your eyes closed?”

“Mm hmm.”

“For how long?”

“Not sure. It was still dark out.”

“Why didn’t you get up?”

For an answer, his arm tightened slightly around her waist. “I was comfortable,” he murmured. Phryne felt a soft warmth spread through her, a giddy little glow she hadn’t felt since Paris. “Why did you have your fingers all over my face?”

“I was thinking.”

“Oh? What about?”

“Last night.” Her voice was low and warm with sleep and very appreciative. “I was remembering how it felt to make love with you in the dark... and trying to imagine what it would be like to be with you again...” Jack opened his eyes and saw Phryne gazing at him with a mixture of longing and sleepy desire. “When I can see you.”

Jack’s breath seemed to catch in his throat. “I… wasn’t sure,” he murmured, “if you would want anything more. You needed—”

“You,” Phryne replied, pressing her body and her lips to his. Last night had been a godsend and a revelation. He had held her in an embrace that promised security. He had moved slowly, listening to her whimpers and sighs and adjusting himself accordingly, and her climax had been all the more powerful because of it, her sleep the sweeter, her need the stronger. “I needed you.” She stroked her foot up his calf; his hand caught the back of her thigh and pulled it over his hip, and he arched against her. Phryne threw her head back to give his lips room to explore the contours of her throat, and let her hands wander down to touch him. Oh, he was gloriously hard already. “I still need you.”

“I’ll be right back,” he growled softly, and started to leave the bed. 

She stopped him with leg clinging to his hip. “Jack? Why _did_ you decide to buy condoms yesterday? Did you just assume that because you were planning to spend the night with me, you would get lucky?”

“Wha—? No! No, I—that is…” He blinked rapidly. “I sound like Constable Collins.”

Phryne chuckled. “Hugh’s a charming boy, but I prefer a man with a bit more confidence.” She stroked him fearlessly. “Like the kind you displayed last night.”

His blue eyes were and intent upon her, though they had gone nearly black and his breath was coming fast and shallow, thanks to her ministrations. “I didn’t expect what happened. I certainly would never have presumed to ask for it.”

“But you weren’t surprised that I needed it. Why?”

“Because… you can be very guarded, with your emotions. Physically, you’re much more…” He hesitated, mulling over his word choices. “Open, in your expressions. I felt that if you needed comfort, that was how you would seek it.” He swallowed hard. “And I… I realized that I wanted to be able to give you that comfort, should you ask for it.”

The gentle warm feeling flared again, and warred with the desire and apprehension clenching in Phryne’s stomach. She wanted this man. She wanted to run from him. She wanted his arms around her. She wanted… “I’m waiting,” she said, very softly. 

He slid from the bed and reached for the bedside table, for one of the small foil packets he’d purchased the day before. 

Phryne lounged back against the pillows and watched him roll the thing on. “I look forward to not having to bother about those in the future. I’ll make my own preparations next time. ”

His hands didn’t falter but his eyes darted to her with an expression she couldn’t quite read. He spoke not a word until he was back beneath the quilt and back between her thighs. “Will there be other mornings like this in the future?” he asked quietly.

She let her eyes fall closed for a moment and tightened around him once or twice. He fit within her so beautifully, even if he didn’t feel _quite_ right, not with the barrier between their most intimate flesh. “I would like for there to be,” she replied, equally as quiet, and touching his face to feel his stubble rasp at her palm. “I want more mornings like this. And evenings. And afternoons.”

“I want that as well,” he said. “But Phryne… how could we manage such an affair? Between your work and my official position… we could never keep such things secret.”

“I never try to,” said Phryne blithely. She rubbed a sympathetic thumb over his cheekbone. “But I know you have to. Well, if we can’t conduct a scandalous affair that would shock all of Melbourne society, we’ll simply have to ask your cousin for the frequent use of her holiday cottage.”

To her great pleasure, Jack laughed. It was a low sound, deep in his chest, but it rolled through Phryne like thunder. She moaned and grinned at him. “Oh, I want more of that, too.”

He slipped his hands beneath her shoulder blades and pressed deeper. This time, Phryne’s moan was of desperate satisfaction. She buried her fingers in his hair and her face in his throat as he thrust slowly, holding her close. “Like this, Phryne?”

“Yes, Jack, just like this… oh darling… mmm…”

It was the same as the night before, slow and deliberate and deeply tender, made more so by the morning light streaming into the bedroom, highlighting the angles of Jack’s lean face and making his eyes so clear and blue that Phryne thought she could see every one of his emotions. She slid her hands down to his rump and dug her fingers into the taut muscles. “Come for me, Jack.”

“You first,” he growled against her lips, and gathering her to his chest, he flipped them over so that she was astride him. She ground down around him, one hand descending through the curls between her thighs, the other balancing her weight on his sternum. His fingers flexed around her hips in time to his thrusts, his eyes bore into her, his mouth gasped and groaned her name, and finally, he undid her. She let out a high trembling cry, at the same moment as Jack arched up sharply and gave a hoarse shout, spending himself hard. 

Phryne crumpled against him, shaking. Jack knotted his fingers into her silky black hair. Then, to her exhausted delight, he laughed. A slight giddy laugh that Phryne couldn’t help joining in with. “A little happy, darling?”

“Unbearably,” Jack said, laughing as he kissed her. 

“Or perhaps,” Phryne said, her heart light and airy and safe in Jack’s care, “perhaps I’ll buy a little cottage of my own. For our private use, hmm? Perhaps for longer holidays?” And she held her breath as she waited for his reply, startled to realize how badly she wanted him to say yes. 

“Hmm… I do like the sound of that. Long… leisurely… well-planned, intimate holidays, that need never intrude on our professional lives.” 

Phryne smiled and kissed him with slow thoroughness. “I think I could cope with that.” Her lips began to tremble. “My dearest friend,” she murmured, tears stinging her eyes. 

He frowned and framed her face in his hands. “You’re crying.”

“It’s nothing, Jack. I’m…” Her breath snagged in her throat, which was threatening to close up with the overwhelming flood of emotions she had dealt with since only yesterday, but she swallowed the lump resolutely and dashed her hand across her eyes. “I’m just happy,” Phryne assured him, and she meant it.


End file.
